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Cancer Fear in CLP Ash Emissions

Chester Yung – Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Greenpeace charged Monday that CLP Power’s coal-fired power plant in Castle Peak is releasing cancer-causing heavy metals found in fly ash into the atmosphere.
“Two toxic heavy metals-arsenic and mercury – are not on the air pollutants monitoring list under existing Environmental Protection Department’s air quality objectives, which have not been updated in 18 years,” said Greenpeace campaigner Chow Sze-chung, adding that “these elements cannot be eliminated by nature but accumulate in the environment.”

The environmental protest group conceded, however, that CLP’s emissions of heavy metals are lower than those reported for coal fly ash from several other places, including Spain, Greece, Britain and the mainland.

A CLP spokeswoman defended what she called the company’s “comprehensive environmental management and monitoring program” in the production and storage of CLP ash, saying it removes all but a trace of the residues.

Chow urged that CLP stop burning coal altogether and replace it with renewable energy sources.

“Heavy metal causes serious environmental pollution and puts human health at risk,” he said.

Prolonged exposure to arsenic can cause skin and liver cancer, destroy the human vascular system and nervous system. Mercury may accumulate in the body and long-term exposure will destroy the nervous system and kidneys, as well as hurt the development of fetuses.

Chow argued that the Castle Peak plant’s existing control devices are unable to capture the two heavy metals.

“Up to 30 percent of arsenic and 95 percent of mercury can be released to the atmosphere,” Chow claimed.

However, the CLP spokeswoman said “we remove 99.4 percent of the fly ash particles produced in our plant before they get into the air through our electrostatic precipitators.

“We process fly ash in a specially built classification plant to make sure it complies with all the requirements of British Standards, which specifies the chemical and technical properties for the use of fly ash in concrete. We supply fully certified analyses of all our fly ash, meeting the quality requirements of the end users, to verify that it meets this standard.”

On its Web site, CLP said the ash is used in the construction of infrastructure projects, including the Eastern and Western harbor tunnels and the Tsing Ma Bridge. Last year, CLP reported collecting 364 kilotonnes of ash.

The CLP spokeswoman acknowledged that the company sells the ash “at a very low price,” but gave no figures.

“The revenue made from the sale of ash is used to offset operating costs, of which the benefits will be passed on to our customers,” she said.

Greenpeace said it collected six samples of CLP fly ash in the company’s lagoon in Lung Kwu Tan and a cement factory in June and July this year and sent them to the Greenpeace Research Laboratory at the University of Exeter in Britain.

All six samples of coal fly ash, the protest group said, were found to contain heavy metals, while the concentration of these elements – ranging from four to 38 milligrams/kilogram of arsenic and less than 0.1 mg/kg of mercury – were lower than that reported for coal fly ash from the other countries, including European ones, where standards are quite high.

“However, the existence of these toxic elements … to whatever lower level still poses a health hazard to human beings as well as damages the environment,” Chow said.

Based on the amount of ash collected by CLP last year, Greenpeace estimated the plant’s emissions included roughly 36.4kg of mercury and 14,000kg of arsenic.

Chow said Hong Kong does not have a comprehensive monitoring system on air pollutants

“It is outdated and loose compared with international standards,” he said, adding that the European Union and California in the United States have included arsenic in their standards.

An EPD spokeswoman said that major heavy metal pollutants and the relevant operation are regulated by air quality control ordinances and the license requirement.

“The department’s air quality monitoring mechanism managed to control the emission of various heavy metals in a very low level,” she said.

“The limit of arsenic and mercury concentration is 7.11mg/kg and 0.23 mg/kg respectively-which is far below the standard of California in the United States.”

However, Chow said that the EPD still needs to review the existing air quality objectives.

The True Cost of Coal

Source – Greenpeace

HONG KONG — April 28 — Shareholders in the billion dollar China Light and Power (CLP) company were today confronted with the real cost of burning fossil fuels. Greenpeace activists and people from communities suffering the devastating impacts from coal fired power stations across Asia, disrupted CLP’s annual celebration of its dirty energy trade at the Hong Kong Peninsula Hotel.”

For every dollar of profit made by CLP last year, it is estimated it cost communities across the region nearly $4 in health and environmental impacts. (1)

Representatives from affected communities in Hong Kong, mainland China, Thailand, Philippines and India traveled to the company’s AGM to expose this hypocrisy. As community representatives addressed CLP’s Board and shareholders inside the meeting, Greenpeace activists deployed a huge banner outside the hotel, carrying the message “CLP: climate criminal“.

“We are here to say no to CLP’s dirty coal business on behalf of many affected communities across the region. We demand clean, safe and renewable energy for our communities,” said Charoen Detkhum, a community leader from Thailand where the BLCP coal plant, a project funded by CLP, is being constructed.

CLP Group recorded profits of US$ 1.1 billion in 2004, their highest for a decade, mostly derived from burning coal. Greenpeace demands that CLP invests these profits in clean renewable energy projects like wind power in southern China’s Guangdong province.

“CLP are climate criminals. All across Asia their coal burning addiction is wrecking the climate, destroying the environment and poisoning people. Unless we act to stop climate change now, the consequences for humans and the environment will be devastating,” said Greenpeace China climate campaigner Gloria Chang.

Last week, Greenpeace disrupted construction of the CLP funded Maptaphut coal plant, one of the largest in Thailand.

China Light And Power’s Debt To Asia’s Environment And People

Latest update On 21 April 2005 – Greenpeace

Hong Kong, China – Latest update: On 21 April, Greenpeace disrupted the construction of the internationally-funded BLCP coal power plant in Rayong Province of Thailand and demanded that the project be stopped immediately. Activists from Thailand, Philippines and Germany occupied the main crane of the coal power plant, hanging a banner with the message “Stop Coal!”

China Light and Power’s (CLP) reliance on coal-fired power generation across Asia is estimated to have exacted a cost to the environment of around HK$30 billion in 2004 – three and a half times the group’s 2004 profits.

CLP are not only Hong Kong’s largest power company but also have extensive investments across the Asia-Pacific region. The problem is that most of these investments are in coal plants. CLP continue to ignore the impacts of using this dirty energy source, instead of investing in a clean, sustainable renewable energy source like wind power. If CLP were to switch their investment from dirty to clean energy, this would help to overturn the damage they had caused the environment and the peoples that live in and would help give us all a better future.

If CLP continue to ‘stick their heads in the sand’ by burning coal in the region, carbon dioxide will continue to accumulate in the atmosphere warming our planet even more and causing ever more drastic changes to our climate

According to European Commission research, coal power has negative impacts on human health, global warming, amenity loss, building materials and ecosystems due to pollution released from power stations. The economic losses that this damage causes, or the additional cost of cleaning up the problems, are not paid by the company causing the pollution. These costs are normally referred to as ‘external’ costs. Across Asia, the parent CLP Group’s fossil fuel projects cost society an estimated of 29.8 billion Euros (HK$ 30 billion).

In 2004 CLP made HK$8.6 billion in profit, much of it from coal powered electricity generation. In addition, over the last century, CLP has emitted over 540 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from its plants. This simple equation is proof that CLP’s profits come at the cost of our climate.

CLP is currently developing more coal projects in mainland China and across the Asia-Pacific region. In comparison to their planned fossil fuel expansion, the company’s investment in clean renewable energy alternatives is next to nothing.

CLP is burning our future. People are dying now as a result of coal burning. Catastrophic climate change will put millions of lives at risk. CLP is at the heart of the problem and their current plans will make things much worse.

CLP must end its investment in new coal capacity at once and immediately switch to a program of massive clean renewable energy development. CLP’s profits are costing the public and costing the Earth – the destruction has to stop.

Sulphur Success A Welcome Precedent

Victoria Button, SCMP – Saturday November 23 2002

Environmental campaigners yesterday said evidence that a cut in sulphur in fuel saved lives should spur the government to a greater sense of urgency in attacking air pollution.

Commentators welcomed a groundbreaking University of Hong Kong study showing a 1990 sulphur level cut swiftly saved 600 premature deaths a year. But green groups said more work was urgently needed across a range of areas, including cuts to respirable suspended particulates (RSP) and improved cross-border co-operation. Some suggested the government should include health costs related to pollution from vehicles when comparing the relative cost of building roads and railways.

The chairman of Clear the Air, Lincoln Chan, said the study was encouraging. ‘If it can be done with sulphur, it can be done with RSP. We should think positive. Air pollution is mass murder,’ he said.

Mr Chan urged the government to speed up the conversion of minibuses to LPG, ban idling engines in parked cars, crack down on vehicles using illegal fuel and step up cross-border anti-pollution efforts.

Friends of the Earth campaigner Jennifer Wang also urged action – including a ban on diesel vehicles – to counter respirable suspended particles. Air quality objectives in Hong Kong were less stringent than those of many cities overseas, she said.

The deputy chairman of Legco’s panel on environmental affairs, Cyd Ho Sau-lan, of The Frontier, said officials should count health costs when considering the merits of building roads.

‘Transportation is one area we could improve. The study shows that if we took more stringent measures to improve air quality then the mortality rate could be improved a lot,’ she said. Implementing smoking bans in indoor public venues also would cut health bills.

The chief executive of the think-tank Civic Exchange, Christine Loh Kung-wai, said it was important to note from the study that the health benefit of cutting pollution was almost immediate. ‘Benefits come quickly. We need to do everything we can to reduce pollution levels because it can help public health,’ she said.

In May, the South China Morning Post revealed that unpublished government tests found levels of fine particles called PM2.5 – a type of respirable suspended particulate – were up to four times higher in Hong Kong than a US safety limit.

American authorities set a limit on fine particles in 1997 after concluding they were more likely than coarse particles to penetrate the lungs, causing premature death and illness. The tests showed pedestrians in Des Voeux Road are exposed to about twice as much PM2.5 as those in London’s busy Marylebone Road.